Liberal blogsphere has been in a tizzy about a story the Wall Street Journal wrote. Basically, Zephyr Teachout, who worked on Howard Dean's internet team told WSJ reporters that Markos of DKos and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD were paid by the Dean campaign to talk up Dean.

Kos denies rightly so. Dkos, during the Democratic Primaries had a disclaimer on his site noting that he worked as a consultant for the Dean campaign. Also, apparently Jerome at MyDD shut down his site while on Dean's payroll. But prior to that job, was a prominent Dean blogger anyway.

Anyway, Chris Suellentrop of Slate wrote an article, which has generated even more of a tizzy because he is raising the fact that Kos has not disclosed his other political clients and that is unethical.

Here are my comments at Steve Gillard's site:

I think this whole thing is unfortunate for Kos and Jerome. It is a sick feeling when this type of thing happens to you. I hope they pull through fine. Steve, if you have their ear, the most important thing for them is too make sure they eat and they laugh.

During the primaries was when I first ventured to DKos and I saw the prominent disclaimer. I read a post or two and that was it. As far as I was concerned it was a Dean site and I never went back. It was not until Kerry was the clear nominee, I dipped slowly back into the waters.

Here's where Kos' problem is and one lesson for the future. Disclosing the consulting association is one thing, he or whoever does this in the future needs to disclose the "services." That is, is it web design consulting, internet strategy, web development, etc.

I am slow on the uptake, but I did not know that kos received money from other politicians, but then come to think of it, now it makes sense. The man had to eat. Again, this is a non-story because it's not like this was during the primaries or that he had claimed an initial mantle of neutrality.

I think the example about a politician who consults with a blogger and may pay to have a story spread through the blogger's blog is not all together ridiculous. This is part of the growing pains of blogging and we just have to find ways to protect our credibility. Bloggers have an inbuilt ettiquette, such as acknowledgments, links, etc and we just have to communicate that outside of the community, that there is a method to the madness and there are standards that we hold ourselves too and that we punish violators.

One last point is that my problem with kos is that he seems/ed oblivious to what he had become and his impact. Fact is that he is no longer small time potatoes and he has to be careful what he says, what he does and has to realize he is ensconced fully in the political arena. It is deadly hand-to-hand combat and you can't skim along and not expect things to happen. My point is that there is a reason why politicians and political operatives are usually circumspect, reticent and cautious about what they say. You do not want to give others ammunition.

This whole episode has little to no merit, but the merit-worthiness is secondary. The issue is that a misleading story is spreading and will have a certain effect. If bloggers want to claim the reform and outsider mantle, fine. But make no mistake, inside or outside, reform or status quo, it is still politics and it is deadly.

About Begala, a point here is related to the last point. It doesn't help that kos had not-so-nice things to say about people, for instance saying "fuck John Kerry" or "Donnie Fow who?" etc For someone in his position, you have to know that if you are going to make enemies or step on toes, then watch your back. I felt that that kos was making a mistake with all his harsh statements recently, because then when things like this happen, you get the Begalas of the world backing off from defending you or joining in the pile on.

From someone whose been through unpleasant political crap, I know that this too shall pass. But too emerge stronger, we have to absorb the lessons here and move on.

Here was an immediate response.

"my problem with kos" (Ono)

My problem with Ono is you are an ignorant moran, or maybe a neo-con stooge.

I should have said, "That makes two of us, moran." However, it seems others got my point, I hope.

In further surfing liberal blogsphere, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Matthew Yglesia agrees with my point that there is a valid question about Kos disclosing who is getting money from. I have to say that I am surpirsed that Yglesias would say this. There is a fair amount of Kos worship in liberal blogsphere and the guy can do no wrong.

All in All, the Right Wing machine, has won this round. The left has spent a whole news cycle talking about this, while the Arstrong Williams, taxpayer propaganda case has gotten a reprieve. Oh well.